Joe Garagiola and Harry Caray featured on the next two installments of MLB Network's The Sounds of Baseball Series

August 6, 2020 – Hall of Fame broadcasters Joe Garagiola and Harry Caray will be featured on the next two installments of MLB Network’s new series The Sounds of Baseball, co-hosted by 2018 Ford C. Frick award winner Bob Costas and Tom Verducci. The Garagiola program will debut this Sunday, Aug. 9 at 8 p.m. EDT, and the Caray program will debut next Sunday, Aug. 16 at 8 p.m. EDT. The Sounds of Baseball launched this past June with legends Vin Scully, Jack Buck, Bob Uecker and Al Michaels featured on the first four programs.

To preview the next two episodes Costas said, “It’s been very gratifying to see how well The Sounds of Baseball programs have been received. Our intention has been not to merely string together a bunch of great calls. That’s an important part of it, of course, but we have also tried to present insight into and examples of what made each of these baseball voices so distinctive. They were all great, but what set them apart, even from each other? Joe Garagiola and Harry Caray are prime examples. At various times, Joe was a play-by-play guy, an analyst, and a true ‘color’ man. A storyteller and humorist. Beyond that, he was a huge television star: _Today Show_, _Tonight Show_, game shows, New Year’s parades, and more. Joe was a favorite of baseball fans, but also enduringly popular with millions of viewers who wouldn’t know a sacrifice fly from a squeeze play. And Harry Caray? Truly one of a kind. Bombastic, an unabashed homer, a genuine, larger-than-life character. He broke just about every rule in the broadcaster’s handbook, all to delightful effect.”

Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle’s 500th career home run, Bernie Carbo’s eighth-inning pinch-hit home run for Boston in Game 6 of the 1975 World Series, and the final out of Game 6 of the 1980 World Series are some of Garagiola’s memorable calls that will be highlighted on Sunday’s program. Costas and Verducci will look back at famous World Series calls between Scully and Garagiola in the NBC broadcast booth, including Mookie Wilson’s famous at-bat in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, and Kirk Gibson’s legendary walk-off home run to end Game 1 of the 1988 World Series. Clips from NBC’s The Baseball World of Joe Garagiola in the 1970’s, Garagiola’s appearances on _The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson_, and his time in the Arizona Diamondbacks’ broadcast booth from 1998 to 2012 will be interspersed throughout the hour-long program.

Famous for his “Holy Cow!” expression, the Sunday, Aug. 16 edition of The Sounds of Baseball will look back at Harry Caray’s unique broadcast style that endeared him to generations of fans. Memorable Caray calls featured throughout the program will be Stan Musial’s final at-bat of his historic 22-year career, the two home runs off the bat of Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg against the St. Louis Cardinals, which became known as “The Sandberg Game,” and the Cubs clinching a Postseason birth in 1984 for the first time in 39 years. Caray’s start with St. Louis’ KMOX radio, and his special bond with Chicago, the city where he called White Sox games for 11 seasons alongside Jimmy Piersall and Cubs games for 16 seasons, will be highlighted throughout the program. Costas and Verducci discuss how Caray’s colorful personality, which was made memorable by his signature rendition of “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” during the seventh-inning stretch of games, is still felt throughout baseball today.

Since MLB Network’s launch in 2009, Costas and Verducci also co-hosted MLB Network’s original series, MLB’s 20 Greatest Games in 2011, which ranked the best 20 games of the last 50 years.